Visibility doesn’t have to just be “showing your face on Stories”

Because let’s face it, video might not be our thing right now and we’re working our way up to it, but outside of showing yourself on Social Media there are loads of ways that you, yes you, can be visible in your business.

Back in March I took members of my FREE Facebook Group, Digital Dreams Playground , through a visibility challenge for this very reason, as quite often, small business owners can see something like Stories or showing themselves in their feeds as the only way to be visible and I wanted to break the taboo of that and showcase the many ways that you can show yourself in your business. I’d thought I’d share 6 of those ways with you in this blog post.

Try it, find what works for you

Marketing is very much about trying things out and seeing what works. There is no golden rule for everyone, there are just ideas, methods, plans that you can try and see if they work. Every business is different and every business owner is different – so have a look at the list below, give something a try and see what works for you.

1. About Me Page

This page on your website is a golden opportunity to showcase who you are, the face behind the business. As a small business owner you have the perfect advantage over larger companies in that you can show who you are in a very personable and relatable way. This is great for your audience to get to know you, why you started the business and most importantly how you are going to help them.

Think about the language you useIf you’re talking about yourself and use “I” don’t forget to say who you actually are, maybe sign off with your name at the end. Also if you are a company of one, like me, I use “I”. There is no point using “we” when I’m not a “we”.

Have some imagery on the pageMore and more consumers are wanting to see the face behind the brand, especially when it comes to small business owners because we put in time for that 1:1 interaction that larger companies just can’t do, this is our edge, so when you’re talking about who you are don’t forget to show who you are as well.

Your valuesWe are so passionate about what we do as small business owners don’t forget to share things like your values and why you do what you do.

2. How are you showing up in Google?

This is something to think about because when people are hitting a search engine, which they are every single second, you want to make sure you are visible for what you want to be found for.

Hit Google and take at look at what you seeStart with your business name, are you coming up at all? If so what is Google showing to you, the user?

Spend some time on your page titles & descriptionsWhen Google crawls your website it is searching for information to index and then bring back to the user when they are searching for relevant content. Google is on your side and wants to give the user the best experience. Help Google do that by making sure your page titles and meta descriptions are the right length, reflect what content is on the page you’re describing and entice the user to click.

Do some keyword researchThink about what you want to be found for and spend some time doing keyword research. Then re-look back at your copy and see how you use these keywords in your website. Are you using them? Remember always write your copy with your audience in mind, not you, and don’t try and stuff keywords in where they don’t flow or fit. Google won’t like it and it won’t be a great user experience either.

3. Connecting with customers in their inbox

I know you might see Email Marketing as another thing to do that you don’t have time for you, but building and nurturing a mailing list can be a really valuable resource and perfect way for you to be visible to your audience. Better yet, a warm audience because they want to hear from you, they’ve given you their email address – ta-dah.

Make it easy for themIf you’re wanting people to receive offers, information and most importantly value from you in their inboxes, make it easy for them to sign up. Don’t hide your newsletter away at the bottom of your website. I know a lot of template bases sites only give you this option but have a think about creating a page dedicated to your newsletter that you can not only showcase further up in your website as a promotion but also it gives you a link to share on Social Media when promoting your list. Far easier than saying “Sign Up to our mailing list via the bottom of our website”.

Think valueYou want to give value to your audience above all. Showing up and being visible in this way you are establishing your business on so many levels no matter what sector or industry you’re in. What can you give to your audience that serves them.

4. Think beyond just posting

We all know what a valuable tool Social Media is within the marketing mix but just sharing content isn’t the only way to increase your visibility. There’s more to it than that and actually by spending some times interacting you can often achieve far more visibility than just posting.

It’s about relationshipsYou can increase your visibility by building relationships and to be honest this is what marketing is all about anyway. By connecting with potential clients, customers, engaging on content and joining conversations you start being visible.

Increasing your reachThere are so many tips and tricks for Social Media so make sure you are using them where relevant. Spending some time doing hashtag research finding niche hashtags that work for your business and content, avoid over popular and saturated ones. You can use up to 30 to help increase your reach and you can use them on Stories too – there’s a clever way to hide them by clicking the text colour picker and choosing one of the colours in your image and magic – they disappear but they’re still there to show up in searches.

5. Collaborations

This is actually one of the easiest ways a small business owner can be visible. If you’re part of any Facebook Groups or know fellow small biz brands or businesses you can partner up and collaborate on content.

Guest blogsThis is a super nice and easy way to showcase yourself and your business to a new audience. If you’ve got people you know ask them if they are looking for any guest bloggers, you might even be able to do a guest blog in return for each other whether it’s an interview style or giving tips.

GiveawaysThese are fab to take part in because partnering up with fellow businesses can really help increase your visibility, again to fresh eyes, and these work particularly well if you are taking part with businesses that compliment yours.

6. Going offline

Being visible hasn’t always got to be able being digital, just like marketing in general and often any business owner will say that there is nothing quite like speaking to people face to face. Even in the online world we live in the human connection of actually talking to someone, or feeling a product with our hands is still priceless.

Check out local “networking” eventsI know the word itself can sound a bit stuffy, almost corporate hence my “”, but call them whatever you like. See what local meet ups there are for business owners, or even for parents and go along. Meet new people, new faces and have conversations.

Think national tooDepending on your business national events are great to, particularly trade shows if you’re product based or conferences if you’re a service. You don’t always have to be an exhibitor at these things, you could go along in attendance, do some research, listen to talks and trust me you’re bound to have a little chat here and there with people.

So there we are – 6 ways that you can be visible in your business. Visibility can be so much more than you first thought and there are loads of ways to achieve visibility in your business in a way that feels right and works for you.

I’d love to know if you found the above tips useful or if you’re going to try any. Pop me a message over at hello@digitalbonbons.com and let me know.

You’re building a business, not a social media platform.

I have been wanting to write this blog post ever since I did my webinar last year on this very topic and after the glitches in Instagram yesterday it felt like the right time to put fingers to keyboard. I saw so many accounts talk about the loss of followers overnight from their profiles, some a few hundred, some thousands – the panic had begun.

“What have I done?”

“What did I do wrong?”

The answer, nothing. As it turns out, rather than an Insta clear of all the bots and fake followers we were hoping it might be, there was a glitch in the system and Instagram was working hard to fix it. Now, this makes me think about a few things.

1. that still so many people are fixated on follower number as an attribute to business success and

2. if it was a clear out of fake followers and bots, why isn’t anyone more concerned about their accounts being filled with those in the first place?

3. How reliant businesses are on social media to grow their business.

I saw plenty of comments when it spread through the airwaves after reading or hearing that it might be a clear out “Well if that’s true that’s good because I don’t want fake followers anyway” – but did you think this when it boosted your numbers to X amount? We can all see who follows our accounts, we get the notifications. You can see what accounts are coming on board. When I had been in business 6 months I went through a cull of my followers and blocked every account that wasn’t aligned with who I wanted to attract – you know the spammers, the weird entrepreneurs who make things sound so seedy (Million Dollar Baller springs to mind), oh and cardboard box companies, they seem to love a follow bot or two. I took my business from 654 followers down to 346 and I felt good about it. Since then I have been conscious to keep an eye on my followers and who followers and make sure that the spams and bots stay away. My aim with this platform is to build genuine, authentic connections amongst fellow business owners and my ideal clients.

Follower number is not the metric you should be following

The problems with Instagram yesterday highlighted once again how business owners are focusing on follower number. The real metrics you should be looking are these:

Impressions

Website visits from Social Media

Time people spend on your website

Sales on your website

And engagement

You should be looking at how much traffic social media is pushing to your site each week, each month, how many sales are coming through and the time people are actually spending on your website because the longer the better. Obviously, engagement is an important metric to look at for creating brand awareness you want to know you are creating engaging content for your audience to draw them into you, to help them get to know you and you them, but it’s not everything.

Quality over Quantity every.single.time

As I said before it doesn’t matter if you’ve got thousands or hundreds of followers if they are not your ideal customer and your target audience it doesn’t matter what the number is. You want to focus on attracting the right followers to your business and also following the right people as well. I’ve seen plenty of people follow totally obscure people back just to get the following. Follow & Unfollow action is not cool – don’t do it.

Putting so much reliance on one thing means that when this does have glitches when the platform does fail you it not only creates panic but you become a slave to it. I’ve had countless conversations with business owners who feel they are a slave to their Instagram account and how they feel if they don’t post on there every day their business will fail or the algorithm won’t like them anymore.

Your business does not fail if you are not on Social Media 24/7

Let’s clear that up right now.

What will suffer is your mental health with the stress you are putting on yourself and these platforms. I’ll share some insight with you.

I’ve worked very hard growing my audience since I launched my business. I knew that Instagram would be my main platform for reaching my ideal clients and when I started I put in the work…

Not always posting, but building an audience.

I was commenting, I was sourcing like-minded fellows, I searched for ideal clients, followed their accounts and commented on the posts that I found fun, interesting, valuable, sent messages and connected with them – even resulting in some virtual teas and cakes. I kept my feed steady and built my community. That’s why Christmas last year I decided to take 3 weeks off from my business, I wanted the break from it all and to enjoy some proper undistracted family time. The out of office was on and my social media accounts were off. In the end, I actually had 4 weeks away from Instagram and guess what happened when I came back? Nothing – it was all the same. The community that I had lovely built was still there, waiting. They hadn’t all unfollowed me, they hadn’t abandoned ship and suddenly I wasn’t attracting clients – nope they were all still there.

You can generate some proper Insta fatigue if you only focus on this platform. Yes as marketers we say about showing up and being consistent but focus on the consistency that works for you above all. Show up when it feels right for you.

Why Social isn’t everything

When I saw this tweet yesterday from Emma Jane Palin I had to retweet it straight away. In business, you cannot put such a high dependency on a social media platform. Marketing your business online includes so much more than that. Social Media is merely a piece of the puzzle and unfortunately, it’s being given way too much of your attention.

I’m not a Social Media hater, I’m a Digital Marketer. I know the other elements involved to grow your business online. I love Social Media, I love how it’s developed over the years, what its brought us, how it’s helped me in business and yes I am focusing solely on the positive aspects here, we all know the darker side, but in terms of marketing and reaching people it has been a wonder – but this isn’t all there is.

If you’re using a platform, like Instagram, as your only way to connect with your audience and grow your business then we have a lot to talk about.

The important marketing elements you’re neglecting

Did you know that consumers generally have to see something 7 times before they take it in before they make a decision. In the marketing world it’s called the Rule of 7 and because of the digital age we are in we have even more ways to reach our customers and clients than ever before. But if you’re only trying to reach them on one platform, a platform you don’t control, a platform where algorithm plays a part – then this is going to be harder.

What you shouldn’t be neglecting is having a highly functional website, that works well on devices, loads quickly, a website that speaks to your ideal customer at every single piece of content that you produce on it. You shouldn’t be neglecting your SEO and how people can find you in search engines. Did you know that an average of 63,000 search queries happen per second on Google? That’s 5.5 billion a day – A DAY! Who’s going to find you if you’re not looking after your SEO?

Let’s talk about email marketing and growing a list.

I’ve spoken to countless businesses recently who have an email list, mainly because they think they need one or know that other people in their industry do, yet don’t have a clue what their email strategy is. Or they have over 500 people on their list and not once emailed them. Five hundred people who have willingly given over their email address (precious data in this GDPR age) and are actually a hot lead – have not been contacted by the brand or business they want to hear from.

What about content generation outside of a social media post? What about an amazing guide or workbook or gift to give to your customers that could be used as an opt-in for your email marketing? What about blogging and sharing content with your audience, sharing your voice?

You are neglecting valuable elements of marketing your business and most importantly growing your business, I’m sorry but it’s fact.

I’m going to outline an example.

Say you have a blog and you write an amazing piece of content that you know your audience will love.Scenario One:

You share a post about it on Instagram

TouchPoints to your audience: 1

Scenario Two:

Do SEO for your blog post making sure you have a snappy engaging keyword Title tag to be shown in Google when someone searches for the content your writing about, you create an amazing Meta Description that completely draws them in and is picked up for the keywords you want to be found for.

Highlight the blog as part of a recent posts collection on your website choosing specific pages that are popular and often checked (which you can find out in Google Analytics).

Include the blog on your newsletter to your email list.

Share the blog on your social media channels – let’s say Instagram and Facebook in this instance, as a post in the feed.

Highlight the blog on your stories.

Touchpoints to your audience: 5

and that’s without the mention of video, or going live, Ad’s or even re-sharing the content.

So let’s recap

Knowing and understanding all the elements of marketing your business online is really important.

Neglecting those elements will cost you business #FACT.

Putting all your effort into only Social Media will cost you business and potentially affect your mental health too.

You need to open up your marketing and start reaching your audience using the other ways.

Stop neglecting your warm leads that are sitting right there in a list, waiting to hear from you.

By putting all the pieces of the digital marketing puzzle together and using them your business will get more exposure, more traffic and more sales.

Who doesn’t want that?

WELCOME

Here is my little hub of digital information ready to help you tackle digital marketing in your business and reach that all important target audience – parents and children. I cover a whole host of subjects in this blog, along with featuring amazing guest posts from contributing authors. If you have a subject you’d love to see covered here, please feel free to contact me and let me know. Hope you enjoy!

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